StreetlightInTheGhetto:But no, making out Trayvon to be a punk thug kid does NOT have bearing NOR should it justify ANYTHING.

WrongIt goes to mindset.If you can show TM was into criminal activity, and had a history of violence, then it can show what sort of decision he could have made that night while being followed by GZ.Since he does have a violent past, it's perfectly reasonable to believe GZ's claim that TM hit him first then continued to attack. That's certainly relevant, wouldn't you say?

namatad:EvilRacistNaziFascist: ontariolightning: In other news (CBS News) JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A Florida woman who fired warning shots against her allegedly abusive husband has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Disgraceful.

IN WHAT universe was she not acquitted using the stand your ground statute?how was she even CHARGED in the first place?

I cant wait until a politician, judge or a cop is killed and the killer gets off because he was standing his ground and felt his life was in jeopardy.

You better read the entire summary of this case before commenting. This woman left the house where her husband lived after confronting him there, went out to her car & got a gun, and then went back inside & started shooting. This is not self defense or stand your ground.

Third Day Mark:Dimensio: Mentat: Dimensio: "Feeling threatened" is not inherently justification for use of violence.

Why not? Isn't that the basis of Stand Your Ground laws?

No. "Stand your Ground" laws, which are not relevant to the current discussion, establish that an individual who has been placed in a reasonable fear -- which is defined as fear that is evident to any reasonable individual -- of imminent death, grievous bodily injury, kidnapping or sexual assault has no duty to retreat before using deadly force against an aggressor who is responsible for the existence of the reasonable fear. Merely "feeling threatened" is not sufficient, as such a broad scope would allow individuals to use deadly force even if their fear was not reasonable.

Know how i know you have no clue wtf you're talking about?

Zimmermans entire defense was based upon Stand your Ground and the use of deadly force. There was a pre-trial hearing to determine whether SYG was going to be allowed as a defense.

No it wasn't.No there wasn't.GZ's defense was based on self defense.SYG is not a defense./what was that about not having a clue wtf someone is talking about?

Mrtraveler01:nosferatublue: NAACP is asking folks to sign a petition asking the DOJ to file civil rights charges against Z.

What civil rights were violated?

Racial "profiling" could be an issue there. Or at least if GZ went after Trayvon because the kid was Black. That would be a potential hate crime, and as said, it's totally separate.

Nobody's disputing that GZ shot & killed Trayvon. If GZ did it because Trayvon was Black, then that's a whole different can of worms in the court. Murder as part of a hate crime... that would be pretty bad for GZ. Maybe death penalty bad, if things got sideways enough.

You run into the total absence of hard evidence, though. Lacking evidence didn't really matter to the murder trial, however, and you don't know how loud or difficult things will be in the coming days. If it gets quiet, then maybe the case won't fly. I don't think the NAACP, Sharpton, Jackson will give up on it, though. There's a lot of hurt feelings out there, which is the best time to score some points (and donations).

What would Eric Holder have to lose from a hate crime trial? If he wants to feather his bed after Obama leaves office, is it better for him to have the trial or not have the trial?

A Federal hate crime trial might be the least bad of the bad outcomes, I think. Throw in a different jury, you don't know what we'll get. I think this gift keeps on giving, IMO. It can't be over yet.

My husband gets OUTRAGED when Huevous Rancheros is not served with lettuce, I had to show him your post.

Well to be fair, this is the huevos at Peg's Glorified Ham & Eggs in Reno, NV, so it is kindof a gringo recipe, but I've had huevos made many different ways. There's nothing wrong with lettuce but it's certainly not required.

Mighty Taternuts:Raiden333: As the case went on, I started to realize that the case had been mischaracterized in the media and that there was in fact Reasonable Doubt. I saw that the prosecution was unable to establish a consistent narrative of what happened, and relied only on attacking Zimmerman's character and evoking emotion for Martin. I am sad that Martin is dead, it should not have happened. Both men made stupid mistakes that night. I don't know Zimmerman well enough to make a call on if he truly had ill-will in his heart. But I am happy a not guilty verdict was reached, because it means that evidence and the process of law have overridden appeals to emotion.

He chased a kid that did nothing wrong after the 911 operator told him not to, how is that not ill-will?

Because he didn't farking do that.

What the hell is it with people like you who have had every salient fact shoved at them this week and yet still can't be bothered to learn a goddamn thing before making the same stupid comments?

Peki:ko_kyi: iq_in_binary: Legal investigator. MY JOB was following people. You NEVER continuously trail somebody from less than 20-30 yards away. Because any closer is considered menacing. Besides that, if you had half a brain, you wouldn't be trailing somebody in a fashion that would alert them to the fact that you're tailing. For exactly the same reason, it can be construed as intimidating or threatening. Menacing, Intimidation, Stalking, there are all kinds of criminal charges that can and will be levied against you for following people around, and plenty of investigators have been tried with them despite the perfectly legitimate reasons they have to be investigating people.

That actually is both interesting and contributes to the conversation.

Who invited you?

Another historical, job training tidbit:There are different philosophies behind running tails. In America it's considered unethical for an investigator to run a "hard" or "tight" tail. These are the ones referred to above, where it's blatantly obvious you're following the person and you're right behind them the entire time. Like the above guy pointed out, it's considered menacing or stalking. Even though most states specifically exempt investigators from stalking rules, it's considered bad form and they could revoke your license or demote you, etc.

However, Russia and some other European nations are firm believers of, and practitioners of, the hard tail. They will ride your ass in a car and make it known and stick to your bumper, they'll walk 15 feet behind you, all day and all night long. It's more preventative than investigatory. They don't care about catching you do something wrong, they want to make it impossible for you to do anything with privacy.

They would at times, however, purposely have the hard tail team "lose you". Just to make you think you'd slipped your tail. When, in fact, they had a soft tail still monitoring you from 100+ yards. Talk about a mind fark. You never knew when you had a tail or not.

Bartman66:Pincy: Bartman66: You mean facts won out on race driven emotional plea /bias from the media and community leaders. and my favorite DUMBARSE line from idiots... B-B-But what if he was a white kid?? well they would have found him not guilty too... You are entitled to your own opinions just not your own facts.

Finally this complete waste of taxpayers money and our time is over

I think you mean "lack of facts" won out. There is one very important person who wasn't actually able to give his side of the story.

????Lack of facts???

According to who?? Obviously the PHYSICAL facts pointed to not guilty ... and you think that if Martin was alive he wouldn't have been charged with assault?? you know.. when you attack someone which is illegal.. even if they are following you.. which is legal?

I am very sorry that Mr martin attacked the wrong person and got killed and yes that is tragic. But what "facts" are you referring to? besides the emotional ones that you are imagining would come out of thin air? Too many people have already convinced themselves of Zimmermans guilt long before the trial and knew for sure that he was evil...

Sorry but justice was served and I am sorry it wasn't the emotional justice but the ACTUAL justice.

Now let's see how many law abiding citizens go out and commit crimes, rob. hurt, beat up etc.. all using this judgment as an excuse.

Hopefully that doesn't happen

Do you really think Martin would have been charged with attempted murder? Based on the evidence?

well, that's not rational then. Sure, he may be morally guilty of something but I don't think he is morally guilty of intentional murder. I have no ...

I don't know how old you are, but when 4 LAPD officers were acquitted of beating the crap out of Rodney King and people rioted, the 4 officers were charged again in federal court. IIRC, two of them were found guilty. It would not have happened if not for riots. Even if it doesn't do any good, the possibility that it might do some good--a feeling of empowerment at the very least--is more than they're likely to get through traditional channels. African-Americans are what? 15% of the population? They have very little political (economic) power and it's decreasing every day.

old enough to remember the Rodney King riots. It was rational to beat a white truck driver almost to death? This is nothing even close to the Rodney King situation. Those cops beat him savagely, on tape, and were acquitted. If our justice system is bullied into action by the violence of some members of the populace, that is not a good thing. We should not be trying people for crimes because some people are gonna become violent if we don't. We should be trying people for crimes because they should be tried for crimes.

If you want to say the Rodney King riots were understandable, that's one thing. To call them rational is in itself irrational

I'm not justifying the beating of Reginald Denny, or even the destruction of property--just making the point that rioting can make a difference in legal outcomes. With regard to your last comment, I don't think why people are tried is as important as whether or not they are tried and held accountable for their wrongdoing.

namatad: /shudder/we no longer live in a civil society. it is legal to shoot anyone if you feel threatened./esp if they are poor, black and young

/and esp if they are beating your head against the sidewalk, while repeatedly punching you in the face

Just trying to help you out, since you evidently forgot that part of the story -- purely by accident, I'm sure.

I'll tell you something, and this goes for 99.9% of the people like me who you probably despise: no matter what your racial background might be, if you are trying to beat us to death we will resist you using any means necessary; and if we are armed and can save our lives by shooting your thug ass dead, we will do it. Consider yourselves forewarned.

Dimensio:Mentat: Dimensio: "Feeling threatened" is not inherently justification for use of violence.

Why not? Isn't that the basis of Stand Your Ground laws?

No. "Stand your Ground" laws, which are not relevant to the current discussion, establish that an individual who has been placed in a reasonable fear -- which is defined as fear that is evident to any reasonable individual -- of imminent death, grievous bodily injury, kidnapping or sexual assault has no duty to retreat before using deadly force against an aggressor who is responsible for the existence of the reasonable fear. Merely "feeling threatened" is not sufficient, as such a broad scope would allow individuals to use deadly force even if their fear was not reasonable.

That's a nice tidy definition, but it gets very confusing in real life situations. The Florida law in particular has been criticized by a task force that felt it couldn't be rewritten and should be repealed. Regardless, in a real life situation like this, no one is going to stop and say "Is this a SYG scenario?", they're going to react and let the court sort it out later. In fact, that seems to happen a lot in Florida. After all, if the only other witness is dead, who's to say you didn't feel your life was threatened? And again, we don't know exactly what happened when Trayvon confronted Zimmerman the final time. If he saw the gun, or if god forbid Zimmerman drew the gun, Trayvon could easily have felt he was in mortal danger. We'll never know though because he's dead and Zimmerman sure as hell will never admit to something like that.

PC LOAD LETTER:Bartman66: Pincy: Bartman66: You mean facts won out on race driven emotional plea /bias from the media and community leaders. and my favorite DUMBARSE line from idiots... B-B-But what if he was a white kid?? well they would have found him not guilty too... You are entitled to your own opinions just not your own facts.

Finally this complete waste of taxpayers money and our time is over

I think you mean "lack of facts" won out. There is one very important person who wasn't actually able to give his side of the story.

????Lack of facts???

According to who?? Obviously the PHYSICAL facts pointed to not guilty ... and you think that if Martin was alive he wouldn't have been charged with assault?? you know.. when you attack someone which is illegal.. even if they are following you.. which is legal?

I am very sorry that Mr martin attacked the wrong person and got killed and yes that is tragic. But what "facts" are you referring to? besides the emotional ones that you are imagining would come out of thin air? Too many people have already convinced themselves of Zimmermans guilt long before the trial and knew for sure that he was evil...

Sorry but justice was served and I am sorry it wasn't the emotional justice but the ACTUAL justice.

Now let's see how many law abiding citizens go out and commit crimes, rob. hurt, beat up etc.. all using this judgment as an excuse.

Hopefully that doesn't happen

Do you really think Martin would have been charged with attempted murder? Based on the evidence?

isn't that the implicit point though? Zim was acquitted of murder on self-defense grounds so doesn't that necessarily imply that he at least was afraid that TM was going to kill him or do him serious bodily harm?

ObnoxiousLonghorn:Kevin72: MelGoesOnTour: For what it's worth, if Martin was such an innocent angel you'd think he'd have said to Zimmerman something along the lines of "Hey, bro', it's all good and I'm just walking home so be cool" rather than decide to attack him outright. Zimmerman may have been guilty of being too suspicious but Martin pulled the first punch.

Can you understand that he was scared crazy by the guy that kept following him? He was just 17. A teenager. Because he was black people thing of him as a big adult, not the way people think of white minors. A teenager's brain is still growing. While scared by the guy that kept chasing him, any brain goes into fight or flight, and he TRIED FLIGHT. But the teen brain will take more crazy risks because it is not fully developed.

Please, educate me on how George should have proceeded after being walloped and mounted like an animal. Go ahead.

You are asking 20/20 hindsight speculation. Somehow there was Zimmerman safe in his car and then somehow he is being walloped and mounted like an animal.

well, that's not rational then. Sure, he may be morally guilty of something but I don't think he is morally guilty of intentional murder. I have no ...

I don't know how old you are, but when 4 LAPD officers were acquitted of beating the crap out of Rodney King and people rioted, the 4 officers were charged again in federal court. IIRC, two of them were found guilty. It would not have happened if not for riots. Even if it doesn't do any good, the possibility that it might do some good--a feeling of empowerment at the very least--is more than they're likely to get through traditional channels. African-Americans are what? 15% of the population? They have very little political (economic) power and it's decreasing every day.

old enough to remember the Rodney King riots. It was rational to beat a white truck driver almost to death? This is nothing even close to the Rodney King situation. Those cops beat him savagely, on tape, and were acquitted. If our justice system is bullied into action by the violence of some members of the populace, that is not a good thing. We should not be trying people for crimes because some people are gonna become violent if we don't. We should be trying people for crimes because they should be tried for crimes.

If you want to say the Rodney King riots were understandable, that's one thing. To call them rational is in itself irrational

I'm not justifying the beating of Reginald Denny, or even the destruction of property--just making the point that rioting can make a difference in legal outcomes. With regard to your last comment, I don't think why people are tried is as important as whether or not they are tried and held accountable for their wrongdoing.

BTW, I agree that Zimmerman is probably not guilty of first-degree murder. He certainly could have been out hunting for nubians, but hearing the 911 call, I think he was genuinely convinced Trayvon was up to no good and he was genuinely scared.

I'm now convinced half the country was watching a different trial than I was.

911 Operator told him "Ok, we don't need you to do that." And Zimmerman followed the kid anyways. Zimmerman had a loaded gun on him for neighborhood watch duty, who the f*ck does that. He saw a black kid running home in the rain with his hood on and assumed he had robbed a nearby 7-11, so he says "They always get away, f*cking punks."

I have made French toast myself, which is quite an accomplishment considering I "don't cook."

Nonetheless, I prefer pancakes, but only if they're not gooey and fall-aparty.

I sure hope those jurors saw something I didn't see, because the guy who was just found not guilty was the guy with the gun, and as a rule of thumb, I never feel sorry for the guy with the gun. Remember, he's got the NRA on his side.

well, that's not rational then. Sure, he may be morally guilty of something but I don't think he is morally guilty of intentional murder. I have no ...

I don't know how old you are, but when 4 LAPD officers were acquitted of beating the crap out of Rodney King and people rioted, the 4 officers were charged again in federal court. IIRC, two of them were found guilty. It would not have happened if not for riots. Even if it doesn't do any good, the possibility that it might do some good--a feeling of empowerment at the very least--is more than they're likely to get through traditional channels. African-Americans are what? 15% of the population? They have very little political (economic) power and it's decreasing every day.

old enough to remember the Rodney King riots. It was rational to beat a white truck driver almost to death? This is nothing even close to the Rodney King situation. Those cops beat him savagely, on tape, and were acquitted. If our justice system is bullied into action by the violence of some members of the populace, that is not a good thing. We should not be trying people for crimes because some people are gonna become violent if we don't. We should be trying people for crimes because they should be tried for crimes.

If you want to say the Rodney King riots were understandable, that's one thing. To call them rational is in itself irrational

I'm not justifying the beating of Reginald Denny, or even the destruction of property--just making the point that rioting can make a difference in legal outcomes. With regard to your last comment, I don't think why people are tried is as important as whether or not they are tried and held accountable for their wrongdoing.

shiat dude, you said that it is rational to beat people and destroy your neighborhood because of an outcome of a court case. I think we can pretty safely say that there were probably precious few people who decided to riot those days because they thought it was going to be a force for change. They were pissed and lashed out. Emotional, not rational.

EvilRacistNaziFascist:namatad: /shudder/we no longer live in a civil society. it is legal to shoot anyone if you feel threatened./esp if they are poor, black and young

/and esp if they are beating your head against the sidewalk, while repeatedly punching you in the face

Just trying to help you out, since you evidently forgot that part of the story -- purely by accident, I'm sure.

I'll tell you something, and this goes for 99.9% of the people like me who you probably despise: no matter what your racial background might be, if you are trying to beat us to death we will resist you using any means necessary; and if we are armed and can save our lives by shooting your thug ass dead, we will do it. Consider yourselves forewarned.

If someone is beating my head into the concrete and I am armed they will be getting shot, Of course I wouldn't be following someone because I'm not a wannabe cop.

EvilRacistNaziFascist:I'll tell you something, and this goes for 99.9% of the people like me who you probably despise: no matter what your racial background might be, if you are trying to beat us to death we will resist you using any means necessary; and if we are armed and can save our lives by shooting your thug ass dead, we will do it. Consider yourselves forewarned.

And if you stalk me at night and then accost me, I'm going to get punchy. And if you respond by shooting me point-blank in the heart, and then get away with it, my friends and family will hunt you down like a dog. Consider yourself forewarned.